Looking
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'I can't believe I'm going to freeze to death with you of all people. We should have turned back as soon as the engine started making that sound.'" Gokudera and Yamamoto's road trip turns into more of a catastrophe and a revelation than either of them expected.


"Fuck," Gokudera says, glaring at the rain-sleek of the windshield in front of him. "We're going to freeze to death."

His hair is damp around his shoulders, tangling itself into the unavoidable waves humidity brings with it, but there's not much he can do about it under the current circumstances. There's nothing to make use of; just the claustrophobic air of the car closed against the storm outside, the detritus of a roadtrip scattered over the floor and the passenger seat of the car, and the emergency supplies in the back that, as it turn out, are patently insufficient to fix the engine that has blown up more thoroughly than most of Gokudera's bombs do.

"We won't freeze," Yamamoto offers from the back. His voice is muffled from his angle - tipped far over the seat to fumble with whatever is in the trunk space - but the space is small enough that Gokudera can hear him without turning. "I think there's a blanket back here."

"It's not going to work for _two hours_ before the tow gets here," Gokudera growls. He can see Yamamoto in the rearview mirror, the dark of his head barely visible over the back of the seat. His t-shirt is riding up at his hip, baring a narrow strip of tan skin against the top edge of his jeans. "I can't believe I'm going to freeze to death with _you_ of all people. We should have turned back as soon as the engine started making that sound."

"C'mon," Yamamoto laughs. He shifts a knee, emerges from the back of the car. There is indeed a blanket with him, or something approximating a blanket - it's actually a sleeping bag, from what Gokudera can remember, a heavy weight that is exactly as warm as it is unsuited for two people. "It's kinda fun, isn't it? Like camping!"

"I hate camping," Gokudera declares. "Should have figured you'd like it." He twists around in his seat, reaches out a peremptory hand for the makeshift blanket. "Give it."

Yamamoto's laugh sounds good-natured enough, but he doesn't move to give up the prize, and Gokudera starts to frown at this evidence of insurrection even before the other shakes his head.

"I'm cold too." He's tucking himself in under the weight of the blanket, looking irritatingly comfortable as he settles the whole of his stupidly tall body under the cover. "This is the only one you had."

"I'm _wet_ ," Gokudera points out with eminent logic only slightly affected by the way his voice dips into a growl at the end. "From trying to _fix the car_ since I wasn't content to lounge around waiting for rescue."

"There wasn't anything else I could do," Yamamoto announces. "Do you even know how to fix a car?"

"That's not the _point_ ," Gokudera spits. "Aren't _you_ the one who always says we're friends? Give it to me, I need it way more than you."

Yamamoto shakes his head. There's a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, amusement wholly unsuited to the dire situation they are in. "We can share it if we're both back here."

"We can _not_ ," Gokudera snaps. "It's barely covering your stupid legs, there's _no way_ we'll both fit."

"It'll be warmer with us both together," Yamamoto says, his tone easy like this is an obvious conclusion, and Gokudera growls wordless irritation.

"Fuck you," he declares, enunciating all the sharp edges of the sound, and twists around to crawl over the center divider. It's an awkward process - he kicks himself in the ankle with his boot, wrenches his wrist when he loses his balance and nearly faceplants into Yamamoto's shoulder - but it's still better than going back out into the rain now drumming echoingly loud against the roof.

"Fuck you," Gokudera repeats as he gets his feet back under him and collapses in across the backseat. "Fuck this. Fuck everything. Give me the fucking blanket."

Yamamoto laughs like he's more amused than concerned at the prospect of facing Gokudera's wrath, but he offers up the corner of the unzipped sleeping bag anyway, and Gokudera is too busy fitting himself under as much of the cover as he can to comment on this reckless unconcern for the danger of his wrath. There's a few moments of fumbling - Gokudera yanks on the edge of the blanket but gets Yamamoto as well as the cover, the other boy toppling in against him until he ends up very nearly on Gokudera's lap - but then they straighten themselves out, Gokudera's knees tucked up against his chest and Yamamoto relinquishing cover for his legs so the long edge of the blanket can stretch between them both. They're pressed flush together along their shoulders, the whole radiant heat of Yamamoto's bare arm pinned to Gokudera's and their hips bumping, but Gokudera's shivering is easing and unwinding his biting irritation at once.

"Fuck," he says without any real fire in the word. "I don't even see why you need the cover at all, you're a goddamn _furnace_."

"Won't it be warmer to share, then?" Yamamoto asks. He is very close to Gokudera; when he speaks Gokudera can feel the exhale on the words ruffling his hair.

"Don't be _logical_ at me, baseball idiot," Gokudera growls, and Yamamoto laughs over the top of his head.

It's silent for a moment, nothing but the soft sound of their breathing and the patter of the incessant rain on the roof; then Yamamoto shifts his weight, sighs like he's getting comfortable, and says, "I'm sorry the car broke down."

"Shut up," Gokudera says with what he feels is remarkable equanimity. "It's not your fault."

"I'm having fun," Yamamoto continues, as easily as if Gokudera hadn't spoken. Possibly he's deaf and has only been fooling them into believing otherwise all this time. It would explain more than it wouldn't. "Thanks for inviting me."

"I could hardly take the Tenth away from his responsibilities just for a roadtrip," Gokudera says. "And I don't want to be in any kind of an enclosed space with lawn-head, I like my hearing functional."

"Haha, yeah," Yamamoto agrees. He sounds warm, comfortable and pleased; when Gokudera glances at him sideways he's looking up at the roof of the car like he can see the rainclouds overhead. His eyelashes look darker and longer than usual, in profile.

There's another pause, long enough for Gokudera to take a breath; then Yamamoto speaks, just before the silence goes awkward. "It sounds nice, doesn't it?"

"What does?" Gokudera asks.

Yamamoto blinks, looks down to meet Gokudera's gaze. His constant smile goes a little wider, his head dips to the side as he blinks. "The rain. Doesn't it sound nice?"

"You would think so," Gokudera snaps, but Yamamoto doesn't flinch at his tone; if anything he smiles brighter, giggles a bright bubble of delight into the humid space. He moves his arm, his skin catching friction against Gokudera's, and when Gokudera shifts he ends up settling a fraction closer, some portion of his weight actually leaning in against Yamamoto's shoulder.

"That's not an answer, Gokudera," Yamamoto says, his tone lilting into a tease. He's grinning, the familiar expression Gokudera knows all too well, but his eyes seem darker this close, his eyelashes moving slower every time he blinks. Gokudera is watching Yamamoto's eyes, holding his usual fixed glare, but Yamamoto isn't matching his stare; his gaze is wandering instead, skimming against Gokudera's cheekbones or jumping up to drag over the other's hair, flicking to a moment of eye contact before circling back around.

"It sounds _cold_ ," Gokudera says without really thinking about it. His forehead is creasing, tension climbing up his spine and digging in at the back of his head until it's hard to sit still, like he has little jolts of electricity running through his blood. "I hate the rain."

"Aww," Yamamoto says, his smile cracking wider again, but his eyes are still drifting, hazy and soft like he's thinking about something completely different than their current subject.

"What are you thinking about?" Gokudera demands, the itch of stress in his blood dragging the words fast and harsh over his throat.

Yamamoto shakes his head, slow and dreamy. "I'm not thinking about anything," he says, and that's a perfect opening for an insult, it's like he's handing it to Gokudera on a platter, but Gokudera can't even take the golden opportunity.

"Stop," he says. His voice sounds weird, scratching on his tongue. "Stop it."

"What?" Yamamoto asks, blinking like he's confused, but even that doesn't clear the glow behind his eyes. "What am I doing?"

"Stop looking at me like that," Gokudera chokes out past tension closing in his throat. He wants to look away, wants to turn and duck his head and maybe hide behind the wet curtain of his hair, but he can't get his head to turn, can barely close his mouth to swallow in an attempt to get some moisture back on his tongue.

"Mm?" Yamamoto sounds lost, confused and astray, and he's not looking away, he's not _stopping_. "Like what? I'm just looking at you."

Gokudera's throat makes a noise on his behalf - it's a faint, desperate whimper, the sound of some long-standing resistance giving way - and then the tingling heat in his blood pushes him forward, crosses over the inches of space between his mouth and Yamamoto's, and his lips are pressed in against the warm damp at Yamamoto's mouth. The sound of the rain overhead surges loud, his heartbeat thuds painful and hard in his veins; and then Yamamoto makes a noise, a tiny shocked whimper against Gokudera's almost-parted lips, and he realizes what he's doing and jerks back like he's been burned.

"Fuck," he says, and Yamamoto is blinking himself into focus and this is _not good_ , what was he _thinking_? " _Fuck_."

He'd bolt, if he could. He thinks about doing it anyway, twists towards the door and reaches for the handle. But the rain is sweeping down the glass, the thunder of sound overhead enough to at least give him pause, and then there are fingers closing at his wrist and Yamamoto is saying "Wait," sounding shaky and breathless.

"Shut up," Gokudera says without turning away from the door. "Shut up, shut up, let me _go_ , just forget it."

"You kissed me," Yamamoto says, and all Gokudera's face goes hot at once.

"Shut _up_ ," he snaps, defensive fury lashing out into his veins, and he twists back to grab at a handful of Yamamoto's t-shirt to shake silence into him. He has a knee up on the seat, is leaning in close to hiss into Yamamoto's face, but there's nowhere for Yamamoto to go, he's pushed up against the other side of the car and Gokudera can't let him go. "Just be quiet, don't say anything, just _forget_ it."

"Why did you kiss me?" Yamamoto asks. That does it, he _is_ an idiot, does he even understand basic concepts of speech?

"You were _looking_ at me," Gokudera snaps, even though this is a stupid defense, Yamamoto has looked at him plenty of times before and he didn't feel the need to press their mouths together _then_. "Your eyes were all soft and your stupid mouth was - fuck, it doesn't matter, _stop talking_."

"Gokudera," Yamamoto says, his voice dipping so low Gokudera doesn't recognize it for a moment, and then there are hands in Gokudera's rain-damp hair and Yamamoto's sitting up, or pulling him down, and they're kissing again, harder this time. Yamamoto's tipping his head to fit their mouths together and Gokudera's hand is at the other's shoulder, fingers digging in hard against thin fabric and the too-warm skin underneath to catch his balance as his world tips sideways and inside-out. Yamamoto is making a sound again, a vibration against Gokudera's lips like a faint purr of pleasure, and the electricity in Gokudera's blood is back, sparking out into his fingertips and jolting his brain out-of-sync and confused.

"What are you _doing_?" he manages when Yamamoto pulls back for a moment to gasp for air that seems to have gone supernova in the gap between them.

"Kissing you," is the answer he gets, like it's self-evident which, Gokudera supposes, it is, really. Then Yamamoto is sitting up farther, toppling Gokudera off his lap - and when had _that_ happened, exactly? - so he can push him back against the car door, dig his fingers up into the damp tangle of his hair and lick steam against the part of his lips. Gokudera opens his mouth, intending to say something, but then Yamamoto's tongue is against his, Yamamoto's gasping heat into his mouth, and he's not speaking at all as much as growling, letting Yamamoto's shirt go so he can grab at the other's short hair to pin him still for reciprocation.

"This is your fault," he thinks to say, eventually, when Yamamoto is distracted feathering his touch against Gokudera's hair and kissing heat against Gokudera's jawline. Gokudera still has a handful of dark hair in a deathgrip he doesn't intend to lose anytime soon, is dragging Yamamoto's shirt all out-of-shape from his tugging, and can't find it in him to care at all. "Just so you know."

"Yeah," Yamamoto says against his throat. "Okay."

"If you hadn't been looking at me like that," Gokudera tries to say, fumbling towards some kind of an excuse, some kind of an explanation for how he ended up with _Yamamoto Takeshi_ kissing a line of affection down along his pulse and his fingers pushing up against the shifting line of the other's back as he moves.

There's a laugh, hotter than it usually sounds, and Yamamoto pulls away so suddenly Gokudera nearly snaps at him before he can catch back the irritation at the loss. Yamamoto's eyes are half-lidded, his gaze out-of-focus with warmth, and his hair is a wreck, showing the clear lines of Gokudera's fingers in the dark strands.

"Gokudera." Serious, that, weirdly intense, the way he sometimes sounds just before a fight. "I _always_ look at you like that."

Gokudera stares at him, the haze over amber eyes, the steady, unblinking sincerity obvious in spite of the overheated dip of Yamamoto's lashes and the crushed soft of his lips.

"Well," he says, and reaches out to close his fingers on the pendant-weighted chain around Yamamoto's neck. " _Definitely_ your fault, then." And he drags him back in to catch Yamamoto's laugh of agreement on his own tongue.

They're both more than warm by the time rescue arrives.


End file.
